Record 63m-euro fine for Orange and Vodafone
Orange and Vodafone, the biggest mobile phone operators on the
Romanian market, were fined 63 million euros by the Competition
Council for abuse of dominant position, this being the biggest fine
ever levied by the institution. Representatives of the two
operators announced they would challenge the decision of the
Competition Council, which they deem unfounded, in a court of
law.
"Orange was fined 34.8 million euros and Vodafone 28.3 million
euros, amounting to just over 3% of the operators' 2010 turnover,"
said Bogdan ChiriĊ£oiu, chairman of the Competition Council.
The fines were imposed following a complaint filed by fixed
telephony operator Netmaster Communications, according to which
Orange and Vodafone had blocked its access to the two networks.
This precluded Netmaster clients from having phone conversations
with Orange and Vodafone users. Netmaster clients received a code
that had to be dialled before any phone number, recognised by the
network of the other operators, and redirected to the Netmaster
network.
The two operators also charged to Netmaster an interconnection fee
of 0.15-0.18 dollars per minute for international calls, higher
than the 0.10-dollar maximum charge set by the communications
regulatory authority.